Young People in Scotland Survey 2021: attitudes to violence against women and girls

Annex C: Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSA)

The sample of this study consisted of 952 adults aged 18 and over. Respondents were presented with scenarios describing particular situations and were asked to rate how wrong they thought the behaviour of the perpetrator was on a 7-point scale where 1 meant "not wrong at all" and 7 was "very seriously wrong". As follow-up to some of the scenarios, respondents rated how much harm they thought the behaviour caused the victim on a 5-point scale ranging from "a great deal" to "none at all". The survey showed that:

• the proportion of adults who marked rape within a marriage as 'very seriously wrong' (84%) and has increased in 2019 from 74% in 2014, however, it was lower than the proportion of adults who thought raping a stranger was 'very seriously wrong' (91%)
• 72% of adults thought a man taking out his stressful day at work on his wife by putting her down/criticising her was 'very seriously wrong' compared to 51% who thought the same when the perpetrator was a woman. Views did not change significantly between 2014 and 2019
• physical abuse was considered as more seriously wrong than verbal abuse, with 93% adults agreeing that a man slapping his wife and 81% agreeing that a woman slapping her husband was 'very seriously wrong'
• 68% of adults thought that a man looking at his wife's bank statements without showing her his bank statements was 'very seriously wrong' and 55% considered a man controlling what his wife wears as 'very seriously wrong'
• 20% adults thought a man texting his wife to ask where she is and when she will be home was 'very seriously wrong', while 42% considered it 'very seriously wrong' when the husband texted multiple times throughout the evening. In comparison, 14% thought it was 'very seriously wrong' for a woman to send a text asking her husband when he would be home, with fewer than 3 in 10 (27%) saying it was 'very seriously wrong' for a woman to send her husband multiple texts throughout the evening
• sexual harassment in the workplace was most likely to be considered 'very seriously wrong' (45%), while the equivalent figures for a group of men wolf-whistling and a man sending unwanted gifts to his ex-girlfriend were 39% and 30% respectively. The proportion of adults who rated wolf-whistling as 'very seriously wrong' increased from 25% in 2014 to 39% in 2019. The proportion who though an ex-boyfriend sending unwanted gifts was 'very seriously wrong' increased from 19% to 30% in the same period
• an overwhelming majority (94%) of adults considered the behaviour of a man who put naked pictures of his ex-girlfriend on the internet to be 'very seriously wrong' in 2019. This compared to 88% in 2014
• 38% thought it was 'very seriously wrong' for a man to pay a woman for sex; 21% thought a group of men going to a strip club was 'very seriously wrong' and 20% considered an adult watching pornography to be 'very seriously wrong'. A higher proportion of people thought the behaviour of an adult watching pornography (27%) was 'not wrong at all' than thought it was 'very seriously wrong', the only example of commercial sexual exploitation where this was the case